


Damn twinkling wizards and their jokes

by Papertigress



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Beards, Bilbo's image of his mother is shattered..., Dori is mentioned but not really a character, Other, Wizards, wizards with suspect beards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 10:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8141048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papertigress/pseuds/Papertigress
Summary: This short slice of something completely different is all the fault of the behaviour of Terry Pratchett’s wizards in the book "Soul Music".The idea occurred to me while I was walking my dog and wouldn’t leave me alone until I’d exorcised it into digital characters.Enjoy.





	

Bilbo squinted across the firelight at the little twinkle that occasionally caught the firelight. He’d seen it several times now and had ceased to dismiss it a his imagination. 

The day had been particularly windy and tonight Gandalf’s beard was more than a little askew. It wasn’t just a little twinkle that caught Bilbo’s eye now, it was a distinct gleam of metal, of wire. Unable to repress his curiosity any longer Bilbo sidled across the campfire and sat down next to the wizard, cleared his throat awkwardly and leant closer.

“I couldn’t help but notice… you have wire in your beard”

“Do I indeed Master Baggins?” Gandalf’s eyes twinkled 

“I’ve been thinking about it rather a lot actually and I have been wondering… it it weren’t too rude to enquire. Is it… in all actuality a false beard you happen to be wearing Master Gandalf?”

“It may well be Master Baggins.”

Bilbo arched an eyebrow and scrutinised Gandalf face closely, regardless of how rude it would have been between two hobbits. Gandalf’s lips quirked in a wry smile and Bilbo realised, for the first time, that his moustache did not move quite right with the movement. Beards and moustaches were so unheard of in the Shire that it had taken a number of weeks on the roads with dwarves for him to become familiar with how they did actually move. 

Bilbo cleared his throat awkwardly and fiddled with his waistcoat buttons for a moment before feeling obliged to press on.  
“If it is, and I’m not saying it is you understand, bit IF it is, may I ask, why would you feel a need to wear a false beard?”

“It keeps my chin warm Master Baggins. And it makes our fellows here more comfortable with my presence. One must use some degree of delicacy when interacting with Dwarrow. They are sensitive souls.”

At that point Bofur, still pointedly not looking at their corner of the campsite, passed wind enthusiastically and Bilbo gave Gandalf a Look that showed what he thought of dwarven sensibility.  
Gandalf huffed a laugh

“A bare chin on an adult is, within dwarrow culture a sign of dishonour or disease. While they are fully aware menfolk and others may choose not to have beards in maturity it sets the Dwarrow folk on edge if they have to spend much time around hairless adult chins.”  
There was a pause in the conversation as Bilbo absorbed this information.

“Would I be more accepted if I had a false beard too?” He asked, wondering if this might have been the reason for the general surliness and standoffishness of the Dwarrow towards him. 

“I don’t think it necessary. I believe that is because they have decided to catergorise you as a child too young to have their first bristles.’  
Bilbo was silent a moment, processing those words, and then he spluttered in indignation.

“Well I like their cheek! I happen to be well past the bloom of youth and I would have hoped that you would have made them aware of that.” They sat in silence a moment longer as a second thought occurred to the hobbit, “If I’m perceived as barely a fauntling then why are they always so harsh with me.”

“I believe it’s the cognitive dissonance that is setting them on edge - there you are, looking like a toddler barely out of nappies and then you open your mouth and they hear the words of an adult.”

Bilbo scowled at the wizard and chewed on his pipe stem, not sure what else to say.

Then the Took in Bilbo couldn’t resist rearing it’s head “Could I… Could I see you without the beard? If it’s not too inappropriate.” 

“Certainly - though don’t hold your breath for anything too exciting, I am only an old wizard after all.”  
Gandalf reached up and twiddled behind his ears, drawing off the grizzly length of facial hair and exposing a chin as bare as Bilbo’s own. 

There was a sudden and general silence around the camp and Bilbo glanced up to see that all of the dwarrow that had he could see had averted their eyes from the sight of the beardless Gandalf and one of them, Bilbo thought it might have been the one called Dori, shuddered delicately. 

“There you are Master Baggins - you look upon the full face of Gandalf the Grey - is it what you expected?”

Bilbo scrutinied the wizards face shamelessly. The lower half was a sight paler than his cheek bones, an inverted farmers tan of the sort Gaffer Gamgee sported through summer. Gandalf’s chin was softer than Bilbo had expected from the wizard’s sharp cheekbones and his mouth formed an oddly delicate cupids bow despite the pipe held between the wizard’s teeth. With dawning horror another suspicion struck Bilbo. It evidently showed in his face for Gandalf’s very eyebrows twinkled at him as if to say “Go on ask.”

“Are you, Gandalf, indeed a boy wizard or have you, in fact, been having the Shire on for I don’t know how many generations?”

Gandalf grinned at him around the stem of his… no… Her!… Her pipe and cleared his… no her! throat.

“I knew Belladonna Took’s child would be a brighter candle than most. You know the old Took never twigged.”

“Did my mother know about this?!” Bilbo puffed up in indignation at the certain knowledge that Belladonna had indeed known and never told him.

“Oh most certainly m’ boy, we used to have a good chuckle about it between the two of us when we were out on the road her and I. She never did show you her own travelling beard she had made for jaunts beyond Bree did she? A lovely thing it was - with black ringlets to match her hair and all.”

Bilbo sat and stared in horror at the wizard, attempting to come to grips with the thought of his mother cross dressing as a dwarf. A more scandalous thought crossed his mind that his mother sporting a beard. “She didn’t… She didn’t wear boots did she?!”

Gandalf picked up her beard and resettled the wire loops behind her ears, settling the moustache back into place above her lip with the press of a finger and a small spark of light.

“My dear Bilbo, it hardly matters. She enjoyed herself, I enjoyed myself and we did a number of very good things out in the wider world. And now Master Hobbit, it is time for dinner.”


End file.
